The Canadian Payroll Association Makes Donation to Help Employees and Organizations Impacted by the Fort McMurray Wildfire

Payroll Continuity Planning Help and Red Cross Involvement will be Part of Association's Upcoming Conference and Tradeshow in Alberta

TORONTO, May 16, 2016 /CNW/ - The Canadian Payroll Association (CPA) today announced it will make a donation of $10,000 to the Canadian Red Cross in support of the victims of the wildfires plaguing Fort McMurray and surrounding areas.

"The Canadian Payroll Association is deeply saddened by the tragic events in Fort McMurray that are impacting businesses and thousands of families," said Patrick Culhane, President of the Canadian Payroll Association. "As an Association focused on people, compliance and risk management through education and advocacy, we are struck by the personal and business impacts of the tragedy and are compelled to help."

The Canadian Payroll Association has a strong member presence in Alberta, with 4,000 of its 20,000 members based there, including over 40 members from Fort McMurray.  "We stand with our Alberta members, and all Albertans, as a show of support," said Culhane.

What To Do If Your Payroll is Affected

Employers and organizations based in Fort McMurray may be challenged to manage their payroll operations during this time. Organizations with a payroll continuity plan have already taken the necessary steps to ensure that employees have received their much needed funds.

If you need assistance in executing your payroll continuity plan, or if you do not have a payroll continuity plan, the following tips may be helpful:

• Make arrangements to run the previous payroll as a proxy so that there is no interruption in earnings–contact your payroll service or software provider if required
• Confirm if you have the ability to produce payroll from a remote location
• Develop a plan to deliver pay statements to a secure area or arrange for direct deposit (if possible)
• Contact The Canada Revenue Agency to explain that your payments may be late due to a disaster
• Explore the possibility of having a conference call with leaders of the organization to implement an action plan or protocols
• Consider strategies for returning to "normal" operations. For example: If you ran a pay from a backup system, you can't just turn your old system back on; you have to pay careful attention to re-integrating what happened in the backup system.

The Canadian Payroll Association's Payroll InfoLine is also available to answer CPA members' questions.

About the Canadian Payroll Association:
Canada's 1.5 million employers rely on payroll practitioners to ensure the timely and accurate annual payment of $901 billion in wages and taxable benefits, $305 billion in statutory remittances to the federal and provincial governments, and $169 billion in health and retirement benefits, while complying with more than 200 federal and provincial regulatory requirements. Since 1978, the Canadian Payroll Association has annually influenced the payroll compliance practices and processes of over 500,000 organizational payrolls. As the authoritative source of Canadian payroll compliance knowledge, the Canadian Payroll Association promotes payroll compliance through education and advocacy. 

SOURCE Canadian Payroll Association

Alison Rutka, Communications Specialist, [email protected], 416-487-3380 x 125